“Then why is she here?” I shoot back. “Nobody’s holding a gun to her head and forcing her to have lunch with us.”
“She’s here because I want her here! Because she’s family!” Brenna’s cheeks turn bright red. “And she’s still in love with you, you stupid idiot.”
I take a breath. And another one. And one more for good measure. In fact, I’m two seconds away from busting out the mantra Wesley taught me after my knee gave out on me during the playoffs last season. I’m supposed to say It’s going to be okay three times.
Except…it’s not fucking okay. And it won’t be, not as long as my sister keeps throwing my lying ex into my path. That woman broke me. She fucking crushed me.
“I’m sorry that she still has feelings for me,” I say as calmly as I can muster. “But she needs to get over them. I’ve moved on, Bren. It took me five fucking years to do it, but I’m finally in a good place again.”
No, a great place. Jess Canning is…my goddamn world. We might’ve started off as fuck buddies, then took a trip into the friends-with-bennies zone, but she’s mine now. And she’s everything to me.
Brenna rubs the bridge of her nose as if she’s warding off a migraine. “I’m happy that you’re in a good place—”
“Are you sure?” I say bitterly.
“—but that doesn’t change the fact that Molly is still hurting. What happened between you devastated her, Blakey. Do you even care that she’s still grieving over the baby you lost?”
I press my lips together, and they’re actually shaking.
“She talks about him all the time! I take her out for dinner every year on what was supposed to be her due date! What would’ve been his birthday!”
What. The. Fuck.
“How do you think she feels knowing that she was disposable to you? You two were planning a future—”
My mind is still reeling. She celebrates our baby’s birthday?
“—you promised to always be there for her, and you just threw her away!”
Our fake baby’s birthday? Who does that?
“I get that you were hurting just as bad, but you guys could have shared that burden together.”
Something inside of me snaps. “Brenna,” I warn.
“You could have grieved for your baby together—”
“THERE WAS NO BABY!”
A chorus of gasps comes from the dining room.
Brenna blinks. “What?”
I struggle to control my breathing, the ferocious trembling of my hands, the red-hot resentment coating my throat like acid.
My sister stares at me, waiting for me to explain.
“There wasn’t. She said… She was trying to make me…” Oh, hell. I spent five years trying not to let it come to this.
Brenna pales visibly. I can see the moment she figures out what I’m trying not to say, because her chin snaps around toward the dining room, as if Molly’s trustworthiness could be assessed through two walls and a lying, heart-shaped face.
“Oh my God,” she mouths.
In a heartbeat, my fury dissolves into defeat. Agonizing and weighty, pressing down on my shoulders until I can barely stay upright.
“What are you saying?” Brenna whispers.
I just shake my head. I can’t talk. I can’t even think right now. I need…air. Yeah, I need air.
Without a word, I stalk past my sister, bulldoze past the dining room, fly into the front hall and stumble out the door.
27 Five-Alarm Fire
Jess
The silence is eerie. And not just because I’m in the Riley house, the place where silence goes to die. It’s eerie because nobody is reacting to the atomic bomb that was dropped in the other room. Nobody is even blinking.
Well, except Molly. On the other side of the table from me, Blake’s ex is trying to win the award for most blinks per second. Her eyelashes move at the speed of light, each rapid flutter bringing a new drop of moisture.
Like everyone around me, I’m unaffected by her tears. I’m worried about Blake, who just stormed out of the house. Either that, or the front door decided to slam itself.
“Mama,” Molly starts.
Blake’s mother holds up her hand.
The curly-haired woman instantly falls silent.
Soft footsteps approach the doorway as Brenna reappears. She’s whiter than the tablecloth, her expression utterly wrecked as she stares at her best friend. Then she drops into her chair and drops her head in her hands. “I’m…having a migraine, I think.”
“Oh no,” Molly whispers. “Let me…” She rises, but as she approaches, Brenna’s head snaps up, a challenge in her eyes.
Molly takes a step back. And then another.
We’re all staring at her now. Everyone’s probably wondering the same thing I am—what the hell? How do you make up such a monumental lie and then cling to it? I have to wonder if she repeated it enough times that she somehow convinced herself it was true.
Molly grabs her pocketbook off the back of her chair. She walks out of the house, and nobody follows her. The door slams a second time.